From f0bf0bb171e0156b94481c52ba583eb5e827a226 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jack Jackson Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2025 18:24:25 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Snowboarding philosophy and a linguistic tangent --- ...ing-philosophy-and-a-linguistic-tangent.md | 43 +++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 43 insertions(+) create mode 100644 blog/content/posts/snowboarding-philosophy-and-a-linguistic-tangent.md diff --git a/blog/content/posts/snowboarding-philosophy-and-a-linguistic-tangent.md b/blog/content/posts/snowboarding-philosophy-and-a-linguistic-tangent.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9a9e27 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/content/posts/snowboarding-philosophy-and-a-linguistic-tangent.md @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +--- +title: "Snowboarding Philosophy, and A Linguistic Tangent" +date: 2025-04-09T17:54:09-07:00 +tags: + - Real-Life + - Snippets + +--- +Depending on how you look at it, I just finished up either the worst or the best snowboarding season of my life so far. + + +It was The Worst Season because: +* Snowfall was the sparsest I'd ever experienced, and the timing of my trips always seemed to coincide with bad weather or sparse snow. Generously, only 2 of the days could be described as having good snow. +* There were more than the usual number of mishaps, misadventures, and gear failures - I had to replace my ski pants, gloves, and helmet due to a combination of failure or misplacement. +* I had the worst fall I've ever taken on a snowboard - so bad I was worried about a concussion afterwards (I was, thankfully, fine) and sported a black eye for a few days afterwards. + +But it was The Best Season because: +* I set a new lifetime record for most vertical distance boarded in a season and for top speed in a season[^ski-tracks]. +* I discovered the simple joy of listening to a playlist with in-helmet speakers. +* I experienced the most improvement of technique I've ever noticed - both conscious execution of deliberate technique, and unconcious moments of my body intuitively doing "_the right thing_" before my mind could even recognize there was anything to respond to. Both are great feelings; and the latter is an important reminder of the existence and malleability of the subconcious mind. + +There's a [Discordian](https://www.learnreligions.com/discordianism-95677) example there on how any and all interpretations are true and no truth is inherent, but I wanted instead to record an observation I made[^truthfulness] during this season about The Philosophy Of Snowboarding[^motorcycle]: + +> Something I really like about snowboarding is that it physically forces you to embrace (or at least acknowledge) a philosophy of not letting fear dictate your actions, and of using gentle fluid redirection rather than brute force to achieve your aims. +> +> When going fast, the two most dangerous things you can do are: +> * to give in to the instinct to lean back away from the speed - the board will slip out from under you and you'll lose control and fall +> * to try to force yourself to slow down by aggressively planting an edge across the direction of your travel - any kind of bump will make you judder, lose control, catch a *front* edge, and faceplant +> +> Instead, you need to lean *into* the direction of travel, but smoothly redirect it sideways so the speed gets dampened by moving in a different direction, away from the fall line. + +# A linguistic tangent + +Improvements to my snowboarding technique reminded me of a concept for which I've long sought a name. A definition of the concept would be "_a simple piece of advice that can be usefully applied in different ways, across a wide range of experience-levels of a discipline_". Typically, though perhaps not always, I expect these would arise in physical disciplines - examples I've often used for snowboarding, tennis, and martial arts are "_weight on the front foot_", "_keep your eye on the ball_", and "_bend your legs_", respectively - although I expect there are probably examples in Software Engineering and other mental disciplines too. + +Crucially, this isn't something which is always trivially and obviously true - "_go faster than your opponent and you will win the race_" doesn't strike me as something that can be **re**-interpreted or rediscovered as you become a more proficient racer[^antidote]. I'm talking here about a deceptively-simple concept which a beginner might think they have understood and internalized fully, and have progressed beyond the need to remember; only to encounter a challenging sub-skill or technique which requires them to re-examine the simple advice and apply it in a new context. + +I remember this concept every year or so and poll my linguistically-aligned friends for a name, but I don't think I've ever heard a suitable suggestion. At least now I'll have a blog post to point them to next year rather than having to explain it from scratch! + +[^ski-tracks]: shout out [SkiTracks](https://www.skitracks.com/) for being a rock-solid application and never succumbing to microtransactions, monetization, or any other bullshit. +[^truthfulness]: that pesky "_commitment to truth_" mindset that I posess compels me to acknowledge that this is not in fact a direct quotation, but has been paraphrased to elaborate. +[^motorcycle]: which reminds me, I'm well overdue to re-read [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance) - I suspect that "mid-30's me", having worked in Software Engineering for most of my adult life, will have an even deeper appreciation for it than "late-teens me" did. +[^antidote]: though it _could_ potentially be an antidote to overly-complex techniques or mindsets which stray from the core aim - instead of a koan which generates insight by having no answer, a, uhh, "naok"(?) could generate insight by being _so_ obviously true as to prompt you into re-examining assumptions which appear to contradict it.